Woods only pebble on the beach that mattered

FROM THE ARCHIVES 2000 US OPENMonday, June 19th, 2000: Tiger Woods wins the US Open by 15 strokes. Tom Humphriesdedicates his LockerRoom column to the feat

IT'S TIGER WOODS'S world. We just live in it. On Friday evening they announced that it was too dark to play any more golf at Pebble Beach. Wishing, as he says, to finish up on a good note, Tiger Woods holed a simple 35-foot putt for a birdie on the 12th hole and called it a night, walking off the green looking tired.

I was there at the time, feeling tired. Jesper Parnevik was there too, looking as if everything he knew was wrong.

Then Tiger put his face, his views, his logos on TV for a while and afterwards came to the press tent for a 20-minute yakkety-yak with the intelligentsia during which he discussed everything from Jack Nicklaus to the LA Lakers to his remarkable eight-under-par score after 30 holes of the US Open. I sat and listened and looked passably intelligent myself.

Then, at some time after 10pm, Tiger headed to his hotel, where he performed his ablutions and had something to eat. I headed to my hotel and did the same. I am Tiger Woods, I told myself.

Then at 4am Tiger Woods got out of bed (perhaps by means of levitation, we just don't know), he performed even more ablutions, had some breakfast and headed to the driving range. He was working at the driving range at 5.15am. He was on the putting green with Butch Harmon at 6am. He finished the last six holes of his second round by 10am. I know this because I saw the highlights on telly when I woke up at 10.30am. I am not Tiger Woods.

Jesper got up early too. Finished the last six holes of his second round and caught the next bus to Palookaville. Look out for him running amok in a McDonalds or something.

In all, Tiger Woods played 24 holes on Saturday. He finished up 10 shots ahead of the bunch of losers who comprise the best golfers in the world, ranked two through to John Daly.

Amidst crowds, bigger and richer than those which followed Moses, I watched as much of Tiger Woods as I could. I nearly finished up in intensive care. Give him this. The kid has got shots. The kid has got stamina.

At times in the past few days, watching Tiger Woods play the US Open at Pebble Beach was like watching a great maestro sing Puccini at La Scala. It elevated anyone who wasn't a pro golfer. It was the perfect confluence of talent, arena and challenge. Enough there to make us giddy but too much subtlety there at that exalted level of performance for most of us to understand.

Too much for Colin Montgomerie anyway. Lordee, but what a dreary old moanie minnie Mrs Doubtfire is. As if not attending the memorial ceremony for Payne Stewart (who was famously generous to the buxom Scot) wasn't embarrassment enough to heap upon himself, the old trout bumbles into the press tent on Saturday morning and announces that surely the gods do conspire against him in matters meteorological.

Then he goes out and partners Ernie Els, who shoots the best round of the day whilst suffering the company of the hapless baboon from tropical, windless Troon. Either all weather is local or Monty ain't Tiger either. Anyway we came to praise young Caesar not to bury big Monty. We were talking about perfection.

On Saturday afternoon at 5.30pm, Mr Woods finished the first nine holes of his third round. He pointed a sand wedge at the catering tents and turned all mineral water therein into wine before walking to the 10th.

Why not? He was nine shots ahead of the rest of the field and the battle had become Tiger Woods versus Pebble Beach. The course, a great warrior itself, had already whipped all comers. The average round for the day was 77.2 shots. Woods went toe to toe, though; his knowledge of the physics of golf truly makes this the sweet science.

It took a mistake to put that in perspective. On Saturday morning, during his six-hole preamble, Woods's drive on the 18th went for some surf-and-turf action and he filled the television screens of Mr and Mrs America with some salty curses. Alleluia! Cut him and he might bleed.

On Saturday Woods got through the first nine holes of his afternoon session in level par. Only Ernie Els and Pádraig Harrington did better. Woods's score was the more remarkable only because it contained a triple bogey and a bogey, the first punches Pebble Beach had landed on Tiger Woods all week.

There were times when he slapped Pebble Beach around as if it were a rented sparring partner. He stripped the old giant of its austere dignity at times. On Friday, the sheer temerity of a 205-yard seven-iron from the rough on the sixth fairway to the elevated green ahead had to be seen to be believed.

From practice to trophy time his week was filled with such jewels. The eighth at Pebble Beach is a wonder of the golfing world, a dog-leg that breaks right, the gap being filled with the beckoning blue Pacific of Carmel Bay.

Jack Nicklaus, this old codger who used to be Tiger Woods, said once that if he had one shot to play before death (or before dinner - who can remember all this stuff?) one shot on any hole in the world, he'd pick the second shot at the eighth at Pebble Beach.

The hole calls for a little brinkmanship. Knock your drive towards the edge of the cliff and whip your second courageously over the sea towards the stingy little green on the far cliff and you'll be fine. Of course, the ball should stick to the green the way a bad name sticks to a dog.

Woods devised something different, pushing his drive to the right, so perilously close to disaster that rescue services could do nothing. Then he'd whip it over the waves trading the tougher lie for the simpler approach to the green and a birdie chance each time. Lots of ooohs as we follow his drive, lots of aaaahs as he sticks for his second.

All of us followed him on procession and homage. It was that kind of US Open - one man performing at a level that we could scarcely understand, one man planting the flag of Tigerworld on the highest summit at Pebble Beach. All bow.

One man. He Tiger Woods. He da man.